One of the top sites on the net (ebay.co.uk)

Member Name: mousedadrummer

Product:	ebay.co.uk
Date:	04/08/09 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Can find cheap items and make some money from selling

Disadvantages: Fees are confusing, there are bad sellers out there

I was suprised to discover that I have been a member of eBay since 2002 and made 205 transactions since then on the site. Most of them have been buying, but I have sold between 10-20 items. For those of you that dont know, ebay is an online auction site. As a buyer, you bid for chosen items exactly as you would in a real auction. You have to bid at least the minimum bid (which increases as more people bid on the item) but you can place a maximum bid (the max price you would want to pay for the item) and ebay automatically bids on your behalf up to that price (until somebody outbids your maximum bid). If you provide the maximum bid and are not outbid by anyone, then you win the auction, pay either by cheque, cash or with ebays safe and recommended paypal service, and the item is posted to you by the seller.

As a seller, you simply write a desription of your item, upload pictures and pick your starting price and wait for your item to be sold. You will be told by ebay who has won the auction and if they have paid and it it then your responsibility to post the item to the buy.

There is also a "Buy it Now" option on some auctions which bypasses the auction aspect altogether and allows you to buy an item for a pre set price.

Ebay has a feedback system, where buyers leave either positive, neutral or negative feedback about their experience with the seller. This can help you to decide whether the seller is trustworth as it is based on a percentage system for example, a seller with 100% positve feedback that has sold 300 items is probably someone you can trust, however a seller that has only sold 5 items and has only 50% positive feedback is best avoided.

Ebay is useful for buying second hand items and rare collectors items, as it was designed for when first set up 10 years ago. In the past few years however, there has started to be more businesses and "ebay shops" where sellers are selling brand new items like in a online shop.

Ebay makes its money by charging fees to sellers. These are paid monthly when you are sent and email invoice. They can be quite confusing as you pay an insertion fee to have your item on the site, aswell as a comission which is a certain percentage of the final sale price. This varys on the price of the item and what the item is. There are no fees for buyers

Overall, ebay is a fantastic place to find bargains, or sell some unwanted items. You do still have to be carefull and the fees you have to pay to use the site as a seller can be confusing, but if you put them a side, its well worth at least a look!

Summary: Ive been using it for 7 years, and find it brilliant!